2Day in HistoryToday is Monday, March 29, the 88th day of 2010. There are 277 days left in the year. The Jewish holiday Passover begins at sunset.

Today's Highlight in History: On March 29, 1973, the last United States combat troops left South Vietnam, ending America's direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.

Ten years ago: President Bill Clinton told a news conference he was appalled when he first learned his campaign had taken illegal foreign donations in 1996 - contributions he called wrong and unneeded. A federal judge ruled that President Clinton had "committed a criminal violation of the Privacy Act" by releasing personal letters to undermine the credibility of Kathleen Willey, who'd accused him of an unwelcome sexual advance.

Five years ago: Attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. died in Los Angeles at age 67.

2Day's BirthdaysAuthor Judith Guest is 74. Former British Prime Minister Sir John Major is 67. Comedian Eric Idle is 67. Basketball Hall of Famer Walt Frazier is 65. Singer Bobby Kimball (Toto) is 63. Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Earl Campbell is 55. Former world champion gymnast Kurt Thomas is 54. Actor Christopher Lambert is 53. Model Elle Macpherson is 47. Actress Lucy Lawless is 42. Tennis player Jennifer Capriati is 34. Pop singer Kelly Sweet is 22.

AP Odd NewsAt 50, Duchess gets royal treatment at zooPHOENIX (AP) - The Phoenix Zoo is used to hosting birthday parties, but this one was a little different.Duchess the orangutan turned 50 on Saturday, and the zoo treated her to gifts, an ice cake filled with fruit and a rendition of "Happy Birthday" by hundreds of zoo visitors.

Her keeper, Bob Keesecker, said Duchess didn't seem too stressed about the milestone."I told her it was her birthday today and she didn't seem to be overly concerned about it," he said. "I made sure her hair looked good before she went out."

Keesecker said Duchess has quite a sweet tooth and worked pretty hard to get to the fruit in the ice cake.Zoo officials say Duchess is the nation's oldest captive Bornean orangutan, and is now 10 years older than the 40-year life expectancy of orangutans in the wild.

Duchess was just 2 years old when the zoo opened in 1962, and is one of only a few remaining original animals. She has given birth seven times and lives with one of her daughters, her daughter's mate, and their daughter.

Keesecker said besides a strong devotion to food, Duchess also enjoys painting pictures on canvas and cleaning her own pen with a scrubbing brush and a bucket of water.

Saturday's birthday party included the groundbreaking of a new $4 million orangutan exhibit that will provide a more natural environment for Duchess and her family. Zoo officials hope the exhibit will allow them to add more orangutans in the future.

The new exhibit will be part of the zoo's overall $20 million makeover that includes a recently opened Komodo dragon exhibit and a future Sumatran tiger exhibit.

Book mixing math, crochet wins awardLONDON (AP) - A book charting the frontier between handicrafts and geometry on Friday won Britain's quirkiest literary award, the Diagram Prize for year's oddest book title.

"Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes" by mathematician Daina Taimina beat runners-up "What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua?" and "Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich."

Prize overseer Horace Bent said "the public proclivity towards non-Euclidian needlework" proved too strong for the competition."I've never won any prizes before. This is my first prize and it's wonderful," said Taimina, an adjunct associate professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

The winning book's title may be odd, but the subject is serious. Taimina uses crochet to create hyperbolic planes, surfaces on which lines curve away from each other instead of running parallel, as on a flat plane, or converging, as on a sphere.

Her creations, which resemble complex coral formations, have been included in art shows and hailed by academics for making tactile concepts in geometry that can be hard to visualize.

"These are two-dimensional objects which you can see only in three dimensions," Taimina said. "If you want to see three-dimensional hyperbolic space you can't because you have to be in four dimensions.

"Understanding these hyperbolic planes, you understand just the first step."

Founded in 1978, the Diagram Prize is run by trade magazine The Bookseller. Its rules say the books must be serious and their titles not merely a gimmick.